Friday, July 22, 2011

this might seem a little delayed, as Knit Nation is now well past! it was utterly brilliant - but so exhausting that even now, i'm not fully recovered (which is why it's taken me so long to post this!).the RSA & i were lucky enough to be able to have a little bit of a holiday before the madness of KN weekend - there was a family wedding down in aldermaston the weekend before, so we thought since we would be "down south" already, we might as well just stay in this awesome flat in london for the week & enjoy ourselves (which seemed to mainly consist of walking everywhere, and eating loads - there are justtoomany great restaurants in london!!). we even went over to paris on the eurostar for the day (where we also walked huge distances, and ate vast amounts of lovely food - i'm sensing a theme developing here!).after a week of eating, it was time to get to work - i'd shipped down all my KN stock to the lovely folk at Loop before i left scotland, & met up with them on the friday morning to unload & set up.

i'd learned my lesson from last year, and had a double booth this time instead of a single - we also pushed the tables to the sides of the booth to make sure folk had lots of room to come in & browse through all the yarns (& to make sure we had room to get in & out, unlike last year!!).

alas, these were pretty much the only photos of the booth that i managed to get all weekend - the moment the doors opened & all the locusts lovely knitters swarmed in, all i could manage to do was sell skein after skein of yarn (i know, what a hardship, right?). & i think it's safe to say that the new OMA bases are going to be extremely popular - halfway through the weekend, this is all that was left out of 10 kilos!

i think i managed to leave the booth for about 20 minutes total all weekend - mainly for bathroom breaks, but i did snag a few minutes to run around the marketplace myself as well (and sensibly limited my purchases to one skein of wollmeise laceweight and three small cones of habu - i was far too busy selling to be able to buy very much, which makes my wallet much happier!).when the weekend ended, i only had to pack up about 180 of the 800+ skeins of yarn i shipped down (YAY!) - ysolda even had room in her van to bring them back up to scotland for me. and, thanks to some excellent forward planning by the RSA, i finally got a moment to sit with my feet up & have a little knitting time (in the airport lounge - for someone who spent the weekend at a knitting event, i barely knitted a stitch!).

a HUGE thank you everyone who came & bought yarn from me in london - it was SO lovely to meet so many customers (former & future!) and i wish that i'd had time to chat more with all of you. here's to another amazing event in 2013 - i think i'd better start stocking up now!!!

Sunday, July 03, 2011

the studio-warming party was great fun yesterday! we were pretty well stocked with fizzy wine (& non-alcoholic fizzy drinks for the unfortunate folk like me who were driving home!) and all manner of homemade cakes & biscuits. loads of people turned up to see the new studio space, eat cake, & knit, including the lovely paula, elaine, kathleen, kerry, gwen, marion, mel, & even the famous ysolda! ;)alas, it was all too exciting for words, and i didn't remember to take any photos until after almost everyone had left (duh!).

& after spending some time with my studio filled to the brim with so many lovely knitters & friends, i can say that it finally feels like my space. since i moved in, i've been working so hard on Knit Nation prep that my main focus was getting the dye room set up & running, and i hadn't really put much effort into arranging the front studio space. but since i was throwing a party, i thought perhaps i should get it looking a little more welcoming - and after that, & an afternoon full of cake & knitting, it feels much more like home.

thank you so much to all the lovely folk who came along, and for all those farther afield who couldn't make it but who sent me kind wishes!now, i'm off to make sure all my boxes & bags are packed up & ready to go - i'll see you in london!